Chapter 45
—Kienna—
Pure agitation consumed Kienna’s soul. She pushed her beaten body heavily against Danek, who insisted she stay in bed.
Moira helped restrain her, though her energy appeared low.
Ruva growled and whined, nipping at Kienna’s body to pull her back, but her frantic motions would not stop.
Kienna heaved, wound her energy, pushed forward, and then stumbled each time her body hit Danek’s.
“You need to rest!” Danek yelled.
The door flung open. Connak stormed in, eyes wide yet rimmed with shadow, fatigue weighing heavily in his stance. “What happened?”
“She’s gone fucking mad,” Danek said, throwing his arms in the air.
Kienna didn’t feel she had gone mad. She knew if she could simply sit down and tell them what she needed, she’d get what she wanted faster.
The exhaustion played with her through it all, preventing her from acting logically.
What she wanted was Ash. If he didn’t make it, she’d never forgive herself.
The minute she woke from her nightmares, the woodcarver flared in her mind. The panic only made her feral.
“Oh, hell,” Connak grunted. He wrapped his arms forcefully around Kienna to ground her back to reality.
She wanted to let his body warm her, to bring her back as he always did. She knew it was exactly what both of them needed in this moment, but she couldn’t go another minute without knowing if Ash’s life would bury itself in her soul.
“Kienna.” Connak tightened his grip. “Calm down.”
“She’s been like this for at least an hour,” Moira said, eyes puffy. “She’s set on getting out of here, but she’s in rough shape.”
Danek nodded. “She has a fever.”
Connak’s face dropped further. “Kienna, you need to sit before your body quits!”
“I can’t,” Kienna cried. She gasped for air as if the words finally breathed life into her. She heaved her body out of Connak’s grasp.
Ruva whimpered, pushing her large head through Kienna’s legs so she would fall forward onto the wolf’s body.
She bared her teeth once when Danek reached toward them.
Ruva’s warmth calmed Kienna, reminding her of the chills that had ravaged her body.
She was so tired. So desperately tired. She wanted to sleep.
She wanted to rest. She wanted to…quit. Kienna stopped thrashing, letting her body fall into the patches of fur like a blanket.
Ash.
Let’s go, Ruva said, stepping forward and making a path between Danek and Connak.
Danek followed. “Where are you going?”
Ruva moved cautiously down the stairs while Kienna rested. She quaked as the fever grew. That didn’t matter now. All that mattered was finding Ash.
Outside, the sun hid behind an overcast of clouds. The echoes of clanging steel rang out as memories of the battle remained etched into the city. The people of Dove Port took to the streets, cleaning the rubble and disposing of the dead.
There were so many dead.
Kienna shut her eyes tight.
Children didn’t dance in the street anymore.
The soldiers ran the city, working to transport items back through the forest. Elvish and human alike, men and women, scrambled to make sense of the scorched city.
Tristian spoke orders to Talon. His presence was firm, but the solemn mourning inside of him was evident. Everyone had reason to mourn.
Ruva passed them. They have not slept. I miss the Shadowmaster.
Tristian’s attention diverted to them. His presence fell in line beside Connak and Danek, trailing slowly behind. “What is happening?”
“She refuses to sleep.” Danek’s voice was laced with an edge that made Kienna’s head hurt.
“She clearly can’t be controlled.” Connak’s voice was restrained and flat. His words cut deeper.
A wave of emotion pulsed through Kienna.
With no energy or time to ruminate, she pushed it aside.
Ruva neared the woodcarver’s workshop and lowered her body.
She crept forward, whimpering. Kienna moaned as she rolled off her wolf.
She ignored the warm, humid city calling for her to stay put, pulling her body upward.
Danek jumped to lift her back to her feet.
Kienna stumbled while the stars adjusted in her vision.
A tight gasp escaped her when she noticed the crumbled buildings.
The workshop was not unscathed. Despite the pain in her body, Kienna ran unevenly to the rubble, pulling at shards of wood.
“Help me,” she pleaded, tears burning her eyes.
“It’s destroyed, Kienna.” Tristian crossed his arms, blinking slowly. “There’s no saving this place. There’s no saving anything.”
Kienna’s heart attacked her, pounding frantically for relief. She pulled with all the strength she lacked. The debt of magic took its toll. Ruva tried to help. Danek approached, unsure of what he was searching for, but he lazily tossed around stained stone.
Moira caught up to them, holding her stomach and wiping away tears. When she saw them, her motions portrayed the feelings inside Kienna’s head. “Help!” She pulled at a large pillar, tearing it out of the way. “The woodcarver is in there.”
Connak and Tristian moved the rubble along with everyone else, though their movements were not as fluid as they once were.
Kienna didn’t press them for urgency. She didn’t deserve that from them.
When the rubble cleared enough, the woodcarver’s private workshop stood perfectly upright, though it threatened to tumble as soon as they pulled it open.
Kienna held her breath without realizing it, the moment stretching before she crossed the threshold.
She pulled the door, ducking as the framing crashed around her.
Inside, the private workshop stood in pristine condition.
The air smelled of cedar and old dust, a preserved world untouched by the ruin outside.
Lamplight cast warm shadows over stacks of wood shavings and tools.
In the far corner, Ash sat hunched on a stool, holding the dragon carving in one hand and inspecting a tiny ring engraved with intricate patterns in the other.
“It’s about time someone dug me out of here,” he grumbled and glanced up. “You look like you’ve had fun.”
Kienna’s breath caught, and she pushed forward, wrapping her arms around the old man. She knew she reeked of battle and dead things, but he deserved it for what he put her through. “You damn fool of an old man,” she sobbed, squeezing with her entire body.
Ruva padded in behind her and, with a soft whine, nudged Ash’s arm before licking his cheek. The old man flinched, muttering incoherently, but his hands instinctively reached to pat the wolf’s head.
In that moment, Kienna collapsed, her body shaking from the fever and everything that broke inside her.
The warmth of Ash’s chest, the steady thud of his heart, the smell of carved wood and oil…
It all wrapped around her like a balm. She sobbed deeply.
Part of her was being rinsed clean, as if her grief finally found its place to land.
“It’s okay, little Ashling,” Ash grunted. He laid his carvings down and held her until she let herself fall asleep, the fever wracking her already fragile body.
—Tristian—
Tristian sent Connak and Danek to get horses.
They hovered over Kienna too much, and she needed space to rest. His heart remained neutral, where he needed it to be.
He couldn’t unleash it again. Not for her.
Not for anyone. He swallowed hard, staring off into the distance.
His brother’s death threatened to destroy Tristian’s very existence.
“Will I see her again?” Calder Ashfell’s voice broke him from his trance as the old man held Kienna close to him.
Tristian didn’t know how to respond. The weight of that question would be up to Kienna, but her body needed healing, and Dove Port couldn’t give that to her.
The woodcarver—Ash, as Kienna liked to call him—set Kienna’s heart on the path she was bound to follow.
Keeping him away now would be tricky. The moment Elira found out, they would do everything in their power to dismantle it.
They would want to avoid the fallout of whatever this could mean for the rebellion that once bore Vaerin and Avenna Ashfell.
“You’re the first family she’s met that welcomed her warmly.” Tristian cleared a path in the rubble outside Ash’s workshop to ready transportation to Trinity.
Ash chuckled. “I wouldn’t say it was a warm reception.”
“But she won your heart?” Tristian’s brow rose, the menial conversation weighing heavily on him.
“We Ashfells are stubborn and persistent when we want to be.” His voice was low and carefully weighted. “You know, she’s the spitting image of my daughter, with hints of the Elvish man sprinkled in there.”
Tristian paused, squinting. There was heavy truth in Ash’s statement. Her ears poked lightly through her hair like Tristian’s. Hardly pointed enough to call oneself Elvish but not round enough to be human.
A half-breed, like him.
This was why Elira treated her so coldly, quick to push Kienna to the sidelines without discarding her completely. She still needed Kienna on their side.
Being bred by both human and Elvish descent was uncommon and meant fighting for everything in the Elvish community while being handed everything in the human community.
Tristian knew all too well how disorienting it was to be treated as a god in one realm but like dirt in the other unless he could prove his worth.
His mind wandered back to Tislin. His brother struggled with the way things were in Trinity. He didn’t want to fight for any of it. When the judgmental stares were unbearable, Tislin resolved to hide. He left Tristian fighting on his own. Now, he would fight alone for the rest of his life.
Kienna stirred faintly in Ash’s arms, her brow twitching with dreams. Ruva slept curled nearby, one ear flicking as if still listening.
“I heard you talking with your soldiers about the Elvish man on the bridge,” Ash said, barely above a whisper. His eyes didn’t meet Tristian’s but stayed fixed on the grain of cedar beneath his hand. “May the heavens keep watch over him wherever the river carries his soul.”
Tristian nodded, the weight of Tislin’s absence tugging on him once again.
He tried to keep busy for as long as he could to not think about it, but the mere mention of him made him feel like the bridge in the Goldmere—unstable and ready to crumble into darkness.
Tislin would have rolled his eyes at how tightly Tristian wound himself. The thought almost made him laugh.
Almost.
“It helps to talk about it,” Ash admitted. “I can’t speak from experience since I drank myself into a hole for twenty-five years after I lost my children, but it’s what I heard.”
“Technically, you only lost one child,” Tristian stated bluntly, continuing to busy himself with moving cedar out of his path.
“I lost Vaerin the day he turned on his sister. Whoever is in the kingdom up north is not the man I raised.”
“Perhaps you could talk about it now,” Tristian mocked.
Ash’s brows furrowed deeply into the center of his forehead, brown eyes sizzling. “I buried more truth in sawdust than you’ve faced in your whole life. I knew you when you were a child. So, hush your tongue and show some damn respect, boy.”
“Apologies, I’m…exhausted.”
“Yes.” Ash nodded, his tone cautious, barely more than a breath. He glanced once toward the door, as if testing the air for unwelcome ears. “I think you all have your work cut out for you, walking a knife’s edge, leading a rebellion from within the ranks meant to crush it.”
Tristian’s jaw twitched. He was suddenly aware of every shadow around him.
His pulse quickened, and he straightened too fast, nearly stumbling on a loose piece of cedar.
“I think you’re mistaken. We’re not…” He coughed to cover the crack in his voice.
He forced his tone to flatten. “That’s not what this is. ”
“Sure,” Ash chuckled. “You’re only here protecting a woman who was trained by my son, and she managed to find me by happenstance.”
Tristian moved from the rubble, facing Ash. His jaw remained tight. Shoulders squared. Every muscle in his frame tensed, bracing for confrontation that hadn’t yet come. His fingers twitched near the hilt of his belt, a subconscious instinct. He was on the edge now, heart pounding in his throat.
Ash flicked a splinter off his pants, like brushing away an idle thought.
The woodcarver didn’t move. He didn’t blink.
He held Kienna like she was no heavier than a carving block.
He revealed no interest in the threat Tristian thought he might be presenting.
Kienna’s breath shifted, growing quicker and less steady.
It was a subtle shift, a soft rasp of air, but Tristian heard it, tethering him back to the moment.
“Relax. Your secret isn’t going anywhere outside of these walls.” Ash brushed his hand over Kienna’s hair, grimacing at the dried remnants of war. “Your horses are here.”
Tristian turned to see Connak approaching with two large steeds in tow.
Ruva stretched her massive frame across the cedar floorboards, arching her back in a long, satisfying pull that made Tristian pause.
He envied the wolf, how simple it might be to exist as a creature of instinct, free from politics and secrets.
Even he had his own secrets, and he grew weary of holding onto them.
If he were to share his secrets with the world, things would accelerate.
The last thing he wanted was King Vaerin directly on his trail, looking for ways of unleashing Sinmara.
“I imagine you’ll see her again,” Tristian said quietly. He knelt beside Ash and gathered Kienna into his arms. She groaned, her eyes fluttering open as he lifted her. He handed her up to Connak. “She’ll make sure of it. You have her heart now, woodcarver.”